A Fish Tale

So I mentioned the suicidal fish before so I'm now going to talk about our betta fish Gene. Gene, or Gene, Gene the Dancing Machine as his official birth certificate states, has been with us for a little over a year and in that time I've brought him back from the brink of death FIVE times, and quite frankly he's been a very stressful pet to have, plus he eats blood worms which are really disgusting and get all over my counter. Prior to Gene, we had Fred, who met his untimely demise due to a water ph problem (my fault) and after we gave him his porcelain burial, I felt super guilty for my bad fish parenting and decided to right my wrong with Gene. This is a bad idea for life in case you were wondering.

First I had to cure his popeye, which is exactly what it sounds like, the fish's eye was POPPED OUT and totally freaking me out and after consulting the lady at Petsmart who said I needed a $20 antibiotic for a $7 fish (um, no), I used magical holistic methods (the internet) and somehow it went away. Then, when we returned from Korea with Mia, we saw that Max had been allowed to feed Gene, which meant he got the entire container of food in one dump. The tank was so thick with food sludge that you could barely see him so the first thing I did when we got home was clean out the tank while wearing my new baby and he once again, lived to see another day. However, in the course of the next few months, every time I cleaned out his tank I would find he had leapt out of the cup and onto the counter presumably to end his life. This happened three times and I was about to call a therapist but then I remembered it was a fish.

Anyway, the other day, I noticed he wasn't eating and floating kind of sideways and even though I would give him a poke now and again to see if he was still with us, I assumed he was finally meeting his fish maker but then it just went on and on and I was like "what the hell Gene, are you going for an Oscar or what?" and then he just kept on living. We moved him into some fresh water and he kind of perked up but was still swimming like he was half paralyzed so after playing Dr. Google Fish Version, my diagnosis is that he has swim bladder disease and probably fin rot. OF COURSE HE DOES. So now we're yet again trying to cure this goddamn fish as if I have nothing better to do and I read that they can live for 10 YEARS. If this is true, I may need to find him a new fish home. Any takers? I'll even throw in the blood worms.